My family and I sailed on the Victory February 25th to the Western Caribbean. We flew down the day before and rented a car from Ft. Lauderdale to Miami. This worked well for us because we would have had to use two cabs or purchased Carnivals transfers which would have cost us $360.00 round trip. The mini van only cost $140.00 w/insurance for one night. We were able to take a shuttle to the Port of Miami the next day for free. We arrived around noon to the Port and were on the ship by about 1pm. There were lines but all seemed to move fairly quickly. All in all a pretty smooth experience. We had booked a balcony cabin for ourselves and put our four sons, ages 20, 16,12, and 7 across the hall in an inside cabin. That worked pretty well for us and it was nice to be able to have two bathrooms to use. The muster drill went smoothly and fairly quickly, although they did pack you in like sardines during the drill but I suppose that was a necessary procedure. After that the ship sailed as planned. The rooms were clean and well kept and we barely saw our cabin steward, which was just fine with us. He was very accommodating when we did make a request which wasn't too often. We spent very little time in the rooms, except for the balcony. The balcony was very private and quiet.
Our days at sea were busy, for which I was glad. I was afraid we would be bored but that was never the case. They had many activities planned throughout the day and we often found ourselves going to the Port Talks given by the cruise director, Jorge. Jorge was hysterical!!!! He truly entertained us and our kids. He really has missed his calling as a comedian. We also saw the Newlywed game, played Bingo, saw the ice carving demonstration and a bunch of other activities as well. All of the shows were entertaining. The dancers were good and the singers were good. I wouldn't say they were grammy material but they still put on a good show. The comedians were all pretty funny, there were three in all. They did both a family show and an R-rated show at midnight. There were two other singers on other nights who were excellent, great showmen! My only complaint on days at sea was the fact that the music/band on deck was too loud. You couldn't sit around and have a conversation with anyone. The entertainment was good, just too loud. The other problem is that people would get up very early and throw their towels on chairs, making it difficult to find available lounge chairs throughout the day. I wish that Carnival would find a way to police that situation a little better, although I know that could be difficult.
Our days at Port were very nice. In Costa Maya, we split up and did the horseback riding and off-road cart adventure. They were nice excursions but very overpriced, as were all the excursions through Carnival. I would definitely do my own thing if we go again. For example, we asked about jet skiing in Costa Maya, the guy we spoke with started out at 95 dollars and would have settled for 60, but we were waiting for the rest of our party to meet up with us,so we declined. Our excursions in Costa Maya cost $600 dollars, which was very expensive. The shopping area was nice, but the locals were very pushy, so I would stick to the stores that Carnival promotes, unless you don't mind bartering. They have a nice pool area there as well and we sat around there, ordered drinks and snacks and relaxed. Grand Cayman was very nice as well. Again, we spilt up and did two different excursions. Four of us went on the Snuba excursion and the other two did the Island Tour and Stingray City. The Snuba was awesome according to my husband and three of the boys. The other tour was nice but my seven year old freaked out when we got in the water with the stingrays and no one helped me out with him except for the other passengers. I found this very annoying considering I was the only person there with a young child. All the pictures of this tour show people in waist deep water but when we got there it must have been high tide as the water was up to my neck. I wish I had more time to shop there but we had to be back on ship by 3:30pm which cut things very close. This is a tender port, so we had to take a boat from the ship to the port. I think Carnival had this pretty well organized but one woman kept pushing her way through the crowds without saying excuse me and I found that annoying. Her family quickly put me in my place by telling me that she had claustrophobia. Still, that doesn't excuse her from being polite, plus...why would anyone with claustrophobia want to cruise?!?! Other than that, things went well here. I would still not book tours through Carnival as there were people on shore offering similar tours at much more reasonable prices. The cost of our tours totaled $400. My husband took one of these tours because the Snuba tour didn't start to 1:30 and he came to the island at 9:30am with us. So, he took an island tour for 20 dollars a person and when he was concerned that he wouldn't be back in time for the Snuba, the driver hooked him up with someone else to get him back to port. I found this comforting because they are always warning you not to use the local tours, but I really think these people make an effort to get you back to the ship on time.